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Original poster

Help me stop my heart pounding at 4am

35 replies

TheOpen · 08/08/2023 19:01

I am very stressed, but a lot of my stress I can't change at the moment. Mostly work stuff and I do think (hope) it will get better by October.

Being sleep deprived makes everything worse. I can cope with my workload if my brain is functioning, but I'm in a vicious cycle of being tired, under-performing, and getting more stressed.

When I do breathing exercises at 4am it makes my heart 'louder' and faster. Does that make sense? What else can I do? Getting a good night's sleep would help so much. My room is dark and quiet and I don't use my phone after 9pm. Tell me your success stories of reducing a pounding heart at 4am please 🙏

OP posts:
tilestoclean · 08/08/2023 19:12

Honestly only a low dose of beta blockers does it for me. I just take them as needed. Maybe speak to your doctor?

AlexanderArnold · 08/08/2023 19:16

I ask Alexa to play 'meditation' and do 4 5 6 breathing...

Titsywoo · 08/08/2023 19:25

Cold water helps me. Freezing cold over my wrists or on a flannel laod over my face. And find a way to deal with your anxiety.

Upsizer · 08/08/2023 19:28

Do you drink at all? Giving up alcohol made the early morning panic stop completely.

really boring though

Kweeky · 08/08/2023 19:30

I was also going to say cold - I read something about it being the vagus nerve controlling cortisol and using cold water on you upper chest to cool it.
So what I do is go to bed earlyish, by 10, then at 3/4 am when I wake I take off covers and cool down, move to a cool bit of bed. Read a book until I feel cold and shivery, then snuggle down under a warm cover - that seems to distract my brain and help me get back to sleep, I'm awake for half an hour or more in the night.

Kweeky · 08/08/2023 19:31

and no alcohol.

Summer2424 · 08/08/2023 19:43

@TheOpen
Try having a hot cup of milk just before bed. Honestly you will sleep better. I had to stop having milk at night because i have to do night feeds but pre baby i was out like a light with just a cup of hot milk before bed. Hope this works for you x

ThreeLittleDots · 08/08/2023 19:44

I'm like this in the night even after 1 glass of wine. No alcohol for me.

User63847484848 · 08/08/2023 19:46

Do you sleep and wake up with it pounding?
This is what happens to me and I’m often in a sweat too and have been having some sort of dream where I’ve panicked because I’ve not done something, then when I wake up it often takes me quite a while to work out what’s real and what’s not.
I really worry about it being bad for me and that it’s going to give me a stroke or a heart attack or something.

HeyMicky · 08/08/2023 19:46

Stimulate the vagus nerve as suggested above. I bought a Sensate but there are plenty of DIY options

User63847484848 · 08/08/2023 19:47

But mine is more often 12.30 - 1.30am, not so much 4am

Stickmansmum · 08/08/2023 19:48

Course of beta blockers. Until better under control and before it progresses.

RuthEvershedforPM · 08/08/2023 19:51

First, really sorry this is where you are at. It’s a horrible trap, A weighted blanket helps me. Still wake up a lot but less of the racing heart

GenieGenealogy · 08/08/2023 19:52

How old are you? Menopause made me like this. Waking at a start in the middle of the night with a racing heart and a feeling of utter dread.

Smartiepants79 · 08/08/2023 20:00

Low dose propanalol is what works for me also.

LoobyDop · 08/08/2023 20:00

I find breathing exercises completely unhelpful when I can’t sleep- they just make me hyper-aware of my own breathing and heart rate, and that makes it worse. Two things I’ve been trying recently that are helping are:

  • no reading in bed before sleeping- staying up until I want to sleep, and then going to bed and turning the light off straight away
  • getting up and going into a different room if I’m wide awake. I’d heard this loads but never bothered to try it, but it is working

Like you, my sleep problems are largely stress-induced. If I’m not stressed, I sleep fine. When I realised this, I tried to remove the stress, but sometimes that’s out of your control. I’m trying now to learn to mentally put it to one side rather than lie in bed srewing.

Original poster
TheOpen · 08/08/2023 20:36

Thank you all so much. There is hope!

I didn't know you could have beta blockers for this reason, so that's good to know. My stress is understandable, I'm under pressure, but I can rationalise it if that makes sense. I can have a word with myself and I'm not in a panic, but nonetheless the heart pounding happens. I stay calm but I feel like my body is letting me down by throwing up symptoms where my body is on high alert so clearly I won't be able to relax back into sleep in that state.

Becoming cold and then warming back up again sounds like something I could try, I would never have thought of that.

OP posts:
Original poster
TheOpen · 08/08/2023 20:43

I haven't heard of sensate but I will google that. I follow someone on Instagram who talks about the vagus nerve but I admit to being a bit ignorant of it all.

I'm game to try anything.

Thaks you to those who mentioned the alexa things too, I can't have something out loud due to DH but I could find something similar for youtube/headphones I reckon. That's a good call.

Worryingly I can't often fall back asleep if I fully wake up at this time (about half the week I reckon) yet I power through the day and become exhausted at 9pm. I try and stretch this to 10ish and then DH will be getting ready for bed so it's probs 11ish when I go to sleep. 5 hours sleep some nights. I wonder what it's doing to me but I suppose I get a few more hours at the weekend.

OP posts:
thebestbarbara · 08/08/2023 20:54

Also coming on to say could you be peri menopausal? This was my main symptom and it’s totally stopped since I started HRT

Mmhmmn · 08/08/2023 20:58

I'm afraid the best treatment (and not an answer you want to hear right now) is probably a lifestyle change in the form of a new job. No job is worth 4am heart pounding. Hope some of the other answers are helpful.

Stratocumulus · 08/08/2023 21:04

Try homeopathic Aconite.
It worked wonders for me when regularly taken. I had never tried homeopathy before.
Got it from Amazon. Buy the Royal Appointment brand. Small white box.

WorkSmarter · 08/08/2023 21:09

Could you be period-menopausal?
I started with heart palpitations, overwhelm and anxiety and have been told it can happen up to 10 years before menopause xxx

WorkSmarter · 08/08/2023 21:09

Peri-menopausal ! Blummin autocorrect x

notsurewherenotsurewhy · 08/08/2023 21:24

I'm afraid for me, the thing which fixed it was changing jobs - problem disappeared overnight. (It wasn't only my job that was stressful, but clearly it was a big enough deal to have this impact!)

I also tend not to get back to sleep after waking at this sort of time, particularly when I had that stress pulse-racing thing. I would stir, wake properly, and immediately be hit by all the complicated stuff I hadn't yet done and needed to resolve, compounded with frustration at being awake and knowing that would make the coming day harder. Boom boom boom palpitations. For me, in your shoes, I would be giving in and going to bed at 9pm. Shit to not have an evening, but more important to squeeze in the hours of sleep I could, I found.

Hoping some other ideas are more helpful in the immediate term though.

Toadsnotfrogs · 08/08/2023 23:15

What’s sensate?

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